I now have a card to prove it. This card must be on me at all times. Spouse and offspring are also aliens. Without this card, one is unable to get an apartment or cell phone. HMMM. How about a little “best practice” sharing between the US and Japan? When one inspects this card closely, quite a substantial amount of information can be garnered about me if you care to dig deeper. For instance, my nationality is Pennsylvania. Look at my picture- it is very humid here. The Head of the Household is identified. Interestingly, I am not the Head of the Household.

Aren’t all women the “Heads of the Households”? Men are the primary Breadwinners in many instances and my observation has been that usually women “run” the day-to-day operations of the “Household.” For 18 years spouse and I shared the title “Head of Household”since I worked full-time. I assumed full duty when I left work and roles changed. This alien registration card made me think about this topic and the changes it’s had on our lives and on this move in particular.

10 Responses to Mom-Dad- Why Didn’t You Tell Me?

That’s a great photo by the way! Much better than the random zombie head they managed to insert in my card. At least your nationality gets kanji, mine just get a jumble of katakana that no one can read without concentrating hard and sounding like a first grader.

I do wonder why they feel it necessary to put the state there? Mine has my home town.

Now I wonder – how is it that they could have messed up “Head of Household” of the document? Likely it was another “Head of Household” who completed the form :):) You must feel like you have reversed in time….

Immigration: You need to declare a head of household.
Me: Okay, I’m the head of household.
Immigration: ??
Me: I speak Japanese, and I have a job in Japan.
Immigration: Okay then.
Me: Did I mention we’re 夫婦別姓? (separate last names)

This is going to be hilarious if we have to get him registered and a visa.

We kept getting “changes” in the mail to ours before we got our final version. On the other hand, there are things about the process that I can see are beneficial to keeping folks with dubious intentions from having access to certain services.